Avadhoot Gupte’s much talked about film ‘Zenda’ which was all set to release on Friday , 8th January 2009, has been shown a red signal by Nitesh Rane’s ‘Swabhiman’. The Congress Minister’s son has strongly objected to portrayal of a corrupt character – Malwankar, who is shown as a Minister of a ruling party in the film. The objection seems to have been raised for showing the cunning character’s resemblance to the Congress minister from Konkan and for insulting the community of konkan in particular.

The Censor Board has already given green signal to this film and the chief minister of Maharashtra Mr. Ashok Chavan has already made it clear after this controversy, stating that there should not be any Political censorship on any film. In the recent past, there have been many such protests over picturisation of certain scenes and projecting the characters resembling the real life politicians or celebrities. But, in the name of creativity a film maker has got complete freedom to show reality. It only depends, how cleverly he or she projects the story and the characters without hurting the sentiments of any section of the society.

Film makers like Ram Gopal Verma and Prakash Jha have successfully done it in Bollywood. In Marathi, we have seen Jabbar Patel offering such political thrillers in the past. It is for this reason, most of the film makers always play safe declaring before the start of their film that it is a work of fiction and that none of the characters have any resemblance to any person dead or alive. Even, Avadhoot Gupte’s ‘Zenda’ had displayed this slide and had been cleared by Censor Board.

However, Avadhoot Gupte, who could have received police protection for releasing this film on due date, has bowed down to this pressure exerted by Nitesh Rane and has finally decided to postpone the release date. As per the latest communication from the film’s PRO reaching our office, he has decided to delete those scenes objected by Mr. Nitesh Rane. The official date of release will be announced soon. Surprisingly, the political parties of the two leaders on whom the film’s theme is based, haven’t made much noise, in the interest of promoting a marathi film.